Mac OS 9 booting on: Mac mini G4 (Detailed Posts)

[adespoton]

Well, I realized I made a newbie mistake.

it would not be a mistake if you booted into 10.6, it would be an absolute innovation.

It is   The current version still has some stability issues, and relies on a few 10.5 drivers, but the entire development toolchain for 10.6 works, so any open source software written against the 10.6 SDK will compile and run, and all the older PPC software will run.  x86... not so much.

[Protools5LEGuy]

Well, I realized I made a newbie mistake.

it would not be a mistake if you booted into 10.6, it would be an absolute innovation.

Just like MDD FW800 and mini didnt boot vanilla Mac OS 9 a few years ago now you can boot most G4 and G5 in Snow Leopard Developer preview

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/snow-leopard-on-unsupported-ppc-machines.2232031/

[DieHard]

Just like MDD FW800 and mini didnt boot vanilla Mac OS 9 a few years ago now you can boot most G4 and G5 in Snow Leopard Developer preview

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/snow-leopard-on-unsupported-ppc-machines.2232031/

Wow, like Xmas all over again, my 2nd favorite OS of all time, Logic 9.8.1 on a G4 with Snow leopard.... hhmmmmmm worth a try, but with Mac Pro 1,1 @$50 to $75, might be a waste

[IIO]

almost nothing in it which is new or updated compared to 10.5. has PPC code.

[adespoton]

almost nothing in it which is new or updated compared to 10.5. has PPC code.

Not actually true; most people developing through 10.6 still targeted 10.4+ SDKs, which generated PPC code.  Once 10.7 came along, many people stopped targeting PPC in their builds.

Of course, this means that most PPC code was compiled against the 10.5 or 10.4 SDK, which is why I pointed out that open source software targeting 10.6 SDK can be compiled PPC and run on the G4 Mini.  Tigerbrew actually works surprisingly well with 10.6 optimizations, for example.

[adespoton]

Cheers for that @darthnVader. While I understand there is a pixel clock limitation, something isn't adding up. When I received my Mac Mini G4s from eBay, they were running Mac OS X 10.4.11 and worked on my BenQ 27" monitor 1920x1080@60 straight out of the box. For fun I reinstalled Mac OS Tiger 10.4.1, I hit the fuzzy graphics/out of range issue. It wasn't until it patched all the way to 10.4.11 everything came good.

My psychic debugging tells me that Apple put something into Mac OS X 10.4.11 to deal with the pixel clock issue.

In your post there is a quote regarding SwitchResX, is there something I can do with that tool that can propagate the resolution/timings into Mac OS 9 or am I basically stuck with what I have at the time being?

The Pixel clock limit can be a real issue, compounded by the fact that most displays don't state if they are coherent/non-coherent.

I had to use the 'NDRV' from 10.3.7 for the Mini, as later 'NDRV's were not compatible with OS 9, and OS 9 'NDRV's are not compatible with 10.4.x and later. Apple changed the ways 'NDRV's work, and didn't care about OS 9 compatibility.

So check if the display works correct in 10.3.7 on the Mini @1080P, if it doesn't, then you're not going to have a whole lot of success with it in OS 9.

Apple's documentation on 'NDRV's is next to useless, and only the people that wrote the 'NDRV' for Qemu's VGA can really help us, and I don't know who that was to ask, but I've never asked at the qemu-ppc mailing list.

I missed this the first time around, but I'm one of the people who hacked on the QEMU VGA NDRV; I added specific resolution and refresh settings.  I just recemtly pulled the VGA source out of my projects folder as I figured it wasn't needed anymore (the NDRV has since been updated to do dynamic detection of supported resolutions) but I can probably find it and pull it back.

The source code requires CodeWarrior 10 under OS 9 to modify and compile, but will provide you with a binary compatible NDRV file.  If you need something tweaked in the NDRV, you should be able to do it via this source.  The real person you'd want to ask, of course is Mark; ProgrammingKid may also have some insights.

However, I figure from your Voodoo2 work that you probably are further ahead on NDRV compilation and linking than I am already.  Together we could probably figure out what Apple patched and replicate that, but yeah; maybe someone on the qemu mail list already knows the answer; that woudl save a lot of time.

[IIO]

Not actually true; most people developing through 10.6 still targeted 10.4+ SDKs

most third party software was universal binary anyway when 10.6 came out - i was more thinking about the components of the OS itself.

did you f.e. try all the coreservices already?

[adespoton]

Not actually true; most people developing through 10.6 still targeted 10.4+ SDKs

most third party software was universal binary anyway when 10.6 came out - i was more thinking about the components of the OS itself.

did you f.e. try all the coreservices already?

Yeah; in general, working well, but CI is still a bit borked.  The guys at MacOSRumours in https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/snow-leopard-on-unsupported-ppc-machines.2232031/ are working on this, using OpenDarwin sources combined with OS X 10.5.  One of the latest things they got working was the CUPS system, which oddly has enabled Software Update to start working, prompting to update everything to the latest x86 versions.

[Jubadub]

So, I have come with a small report to make.

Remember a year ago I used to have an issue booting from my 512GB PATA SSD on my Mac mini G4 1.5GHz, which led me to concoct this workaround?

In my post, I say this:

Throughout the whole post, I assume the boot issue I have both with the IDE device and the external FireWire drive is that their capacity is past 128 GB, regardless of how you partition them, and that the same issue would be present with USB devices past that capacity, as well.
I'll refer to the >128GB devices as "Big Drives" and to the <=128GB devices as "Small Drives".

Turns out this whole assumption was 100% wrong, because I can directly boot from a 2048 GB (2TB) M.2 Samsung EVO 860 SATA SSD using a cheap, nameless, excellent-working M.2-SATA-to-PATA/IDE adapter, on a different, 1.25Ghz mini (likely works on 1.5GHz minis, too).

This leaves me with the following conclusion: It was the disk firmware of both the Super Talent PATA SSD and the LaCie FireWire HDD that prevented direct booting into Mac OS on the Mac mini.

Well, at least it's good to have my workaround for some of the otherwise-incompatible devices out there. That SSD (and 1.5GHz mini) are still healthy and perfectly functional, with no single sign of wear or issues after extensive usage, with hundreds upon hundreds of GBs of data moved around and stored among hundreds of thousands of files.

Man. Direct booting is good. OS9 on a mini is also so good. They should seriously put them back into production, now with 7448 processors instead, which are already OS9-compatible and Mac-mini-motherboard-compatible... (One can theoretically still buy the processor for around 500 USD brand new and solder it into the board + adjust core voltage, clock it to 2GHz and have it run even cooler than it already does, with 1MB of L2 cache instead of 512KB.)

The exact product names are MC7448HX1700LD and MC7448VU1700LD (RoHS-compliant version), and NXP (the manufacturer, who bought Freescale) points to resellers here.
Note there are many other versions of the 7448 listed on that page, but they were confirmed to be stable only with lower clock speeds, so I only highlighted above the versions of interest (1.7GHz, easily reach 2.0GHz, can only go even higher with revised, epic cooling solutions).
How-to video (in case anyone has all the equipment + knowledge/expertise to try): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnpdLt4OIFs

[IIO]

This leaves me with the following conclusion: It was the disk firmware of both the Super Talent PATA SSD and the LaCie FireWire HDD that prevented direct booting into Mac OS on the Mac mini.

for the SSD this could be, but as for the HDD you would have found the very first HDD which doesnt boot into OS9.

[Jubadub]

for the SSD this could be, but as for the HDD you would have found the very first HDD which doesnt boot into OS9.

Really? Mine is exactly like this one, but a bit more up-to-date (FireWire only 800 and no 400, for example). LaCie says the minimum system requirement even for this older model is OS X 10.5, though it could be that they just didn't bother to mention others or whatever. I can use the drive on OS 9. Just not boot from it, no matter partition sizes or amount of partitions (much like the SSD).

Anyway, weird stuff. Now time to see if drives bigger than 2 TB can also work. Apple docs state OS 9 (but not 8 ) has a 2 TB size limit per partition (called "volume" in Apple parlance), but no mention about drive size limits... But somehow, I always assumed 2 TB would also be the drive limit. But I want to challenge that. At least I have personally used network volumes up to 4TB via AFP successfully under 9.2.2 without any problems, for many months so far. Impressively, this already goes beyond what Apple stated was the limit for OS 9 "volumes", but maybe AFP volumes are dealt with differently. (And, who knows, maybe some crazy bugs are just silently waiting for me to cross the 2 TB line, like evil gremlins.)

There's always so much fun to be had.

[IIO]

yeah, the 2 TB is also per drive. thats because apple partition map ist 32 bit - the adress space gives you some 217 million adresses.

maybe you find out why that disk didnt work, it could be a lesson for all of us. the case is widely used on macs, no idea what drive they sell with it.

[Jubadub]

yeah, the 2 TB is also per drive. thats because apple partition map ist 32 bit

Yeah, I feared that was the case. But you know what bothers me? This here:

http://www.sonnettech.com/support/kb/kb.php?cat=337&expand=_a3&action=b384#b384

With this, I was able to format and use a 4TB drive with APM, at least with the device this driver is made for. But this is only for OSX 10.4/10.5 (and maybe pre-release 10.6 now, I guess).

What also irks me is that Apple's docs say Jaguar's partition (volume) limit is 8TB, and Panther's 16TB. However, both of those systems only understand/recognize APM, and not GPT (GUID Partition Table). That would mean their actual limits would also be 2 TB... unless if I'm missing something.

[teroyk]

yeah, the 2 TB is also per drive. thats because apple partition map ist 32 bit

What also irks me is that Apple's docs say Jaguar's partition (volume) limit is 8TB, and Panther's 16TB. However, both of those systems only understand/recognize APM, and not GPT (GUID Partition Table). That would mean their actual limits would also be 2 TB... unless if I'm missing something.

Actually APM is 32-bit in sector numbers, but I didn't find where APM says sector size (at least in Mac OS 9), that 2 TB limit is with 512 byte sector size (normal sector size in OSX), but that is not limit. Anyway max 16 partitions in one drive APM limit.

[teroyk]

You can make 64kB sector size with Silverlining Pro. So APM support at least 256 TB in one drive with Mac OS 9.

[IIO]

What also irks me is that Apple's docs say Jaguar's partition (volume) limit is 8TB

yeah, i also was curious about that difference, too, but the sector size - or an OSX software solution - is probably the answer to it.

playing with the sector size in an OS9 machine HD is something i would not like to do, though it makes totally sense for  a disk with mostly big files on it, i wouldnt count on 100% compatiblity of such a disk with other hard- and software.

[IIO]

so, for future reference & to get my starting statement right: there is a 2 TB limit in OS9 because of the way OS9 and 10.4/10.5´s built-in tools format your HDs - but in theory it can be even bigger.

[teroyk]

so, for future reference & to get my starting statement right: there is a 2 TB limit in OS9 because of the way OS9 and 10.4/10.5´s built-in tools format your HDs - but in theory it can be even bigger.

Actually it seems that I have been used 4 kB sector size in my Powerbook over 10 years and HD is copied from my first Powerbook (that was formated in factory). I did copy with OSX10.5 Diskutility and resized with iPartition So it seems that bigger sector size work at least in OS9 and OSX10.3/10.4 in long run too.

Have ever tried to format with Drive Setup of Mac OS 9 over 2 TB disk? I haven't get it work any size of USB or FW-drive with it and it is hard to find over 2 TB ATAPI-disk.

[IIO]

i would like to to try it, but i only use 1,5 and 2,0 TB disks (because of the 2 TB limit )

well, the OS9 disk tool would simply only allow you to make partitions up to 2,15, that is clear.

edit:

i could try putting 2 currently empty 1.5 disks into spanning raid mode and try out silverlining with double sector size. but i need to know prior to it how adressing works when i use spanning. ??

[adespoton]

Anyone have any update on power management support?  I seem to be able to sleep from the Finder menu, but I've been wanting to get Wake on LAN working, and I think we still don't have the right code in place to support this; is that correct? Is there anything I could provide that could help move this forward?